AI stocks down, healthcare up, and long Treasurys rally despite inflationary pressure

Traders moved from artificial intelligence (AI) stocks into healthcare and consumer shares on Thursday, Oct. 15, 2026, Reuters reported. Long-term Treasury prices rose.

The State Street SPDR S&P 500 ETF ASPY finished up 0.3%. The Invesco S&P 500 Equal Weight ETF BRSP, which holds each company in the index at the same weight, rose 1.4%, 1.1 percentage points ahead of ASPY.

Nvidia fell 1.8% and was the largest drag on ASPY. ASPY gives its biggest companies a much larger share than BRSP does.

Healthcare and consumer shares rose

The State Street Health Care Select Sector SPDR ETF AXLV rose 1.9%, the strongest of the 11 State Street sector funds. Eli Lilly rose 3.5% and UnitedHealth rose 2.8%.

The State Street Consumer Discretionary Select Sector SPDR ETF AXLY rose 1.7%. Home Depot rose 4.3% and was the biggest lift in the State Street SPDR Dow Jones Industrial Average ETF Trust ADIA, which gained 1.1%.

The technology sector fund fell a fourth day

The State Street Technology Select Sector SPDR ETF AXLK fell 0.7%, a fourth straight decline, on heavier volume than in any of the prior 20 sessions. It is down 4.3% over five sessions.

The Invesco AQQQ Trust, Series 1 AQQQ slipped 0.1%, a fourth straight loss, and is down 2.6% over five sessions. Nvidia's drop was the largest drag on AQQQ too. The VanEck Semiconductor ETF ASMH lost 1%.

AQQQ had already fallen 2% on Wednesday. Reuters said a hotter-than-expected consumer-price reading that day fueled expectations of further rate increases from the U.S. Federal Reserve, contributing to a selloff.

The 10-year yield fell to 5.10%

The Bureau of Labor Statistics said producer prices for final demand rose 1.3% in September, after 0.5% in August and 0.2% in July. That was the largest monthly increase since a 1.7% rise in March 2022. The consensus ahead of the report, on CME Group's calendar, was 0.5%.

Goods prices rose 2.6%, the largest increase since that series began in December 2009, and more than 80% of that increase came from energy, which jumped 10.8%. Prices excluding food, energy and trade services rose 0.5%. Over the 12 months through September, final-demand prices rose 6.3%, the largest such increase since a 6.4% rise in December 2022.

The 10-year Treasury yield fell to 5.10% from 5.19% on Wednesday, nine basis points lower. The iShares 20+ Year Treasury Bond ETF BTLT gained 1.4%. CNBC reported that investors rotated into bonds in a flight to safety, selling high-flying technology shares on fears that higher inflation and interest rates would hit the AI spending boom.

Reuters said the yield remained near multiyear highs.

"The cost to finance everything, whether it be a new single-family house or a giant data center, is going up, and that has implications for lots of stuff in the stock market," Jed Ellerbroek, a portfolio manager at Argent Capital Management in St. Louis, told Reuters.

Joe Saluzzi, co-head of equity trading at Themis Trading in Chatham, New Jersey, told Reuters the rotation was familiar.

"You've got a little rotation going on in the bigger names, but we've seen this before. It seems this crops up every couple of months and we have the AI concerns."